


Strange and Terrible Things

by BrutallyRomantic



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23770600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrutallyRomantic/pseuds/BrutallyRomantic
Summary: Raven is captured by Slade for a strange and terrible reason. An old power is revealed, things are never what they seem.Rated M for later chapters.
Relationships: Raven/Slade Wilson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	1. Prisoner

**Author's Note:**

> Let me preface this by saying that I began writing this particular fic in 2007. For a long time I was stuck, and then would update a bit and get stuck once more. Ideally, I would like to add a few more chapters and bring it to a close, so fingers crossed. 
> 
> Please note that due to the short length of some of the chapters the first time I posted it back on ff.net, I've now consolidated them into fewer, longer chapters.
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy!

The air was thick and laced with tension, emanating for the most part from the prisoner currently bound and silent. Her head hung low, shoulders pressed high and tight beside her neck, as much as the restraints at her wrists would allow. The only echoing sound in the room was her breathing, coming quick and heavy. Her struggles had proved useless.

Raven still could not figure out what exactly had happened. Her only memory of her capture was that of a sharp voice speaking in a language long forgotten, and then darkness.

Now, seated before her frighteningly calm captor, with arms and legs bound to a chair, it was all she could do to hold in the rage that was threatening to burst forth and destroy everything within the next hundred miles. That would be counterproductive.

The captor in question broke through her concentration as he spoke, though Raven deliberately chose to not hear whatever he had said. She tilted her face up and locked gazes with the one eye revealed by Slade's mask. It gave her no guess as to his expression, hiding all emotion with just one simple sheet of metal.

With a hiss, Raven gave another harsh tug at her restraints, a pointless movement that only served to bruise those points of contact further.

"Don't talk to me. Let me go!" The hostile demand issued from barely parted lips, backed up by eyes that had narrowed to slits and practically _oozed_ hatred.

"You are in no position to be handing out orders, my dear." Slade's voice was as smooth and chill-inducing as ever. Except it was worse, somehow, with a sickening smugness lacing throughout.

"I can do as I damn well please." The dark energy the girl controlled flared around her, begging to be released. As badly as she wanted to, Raven was not confident in that moment that she could hold herself back to merely escaping. She wanted to kill this man, this _monster_. Not only that, she wanted to _destroy_ him until there was nothing left but a shivering husk, breathing but not truly _alive_ in any real sense of the word.

It was this desire that frightened her late at night, when she could feel her Rage battling for the barest taste of freedom.

The man walked towards the bound girl and continued to pace a circle around her, stopping directly behind the chair and out of Raven's sight. He chuckled darkly, as if sensing the inner struggle Raven was having, leaning forward to speak directly next to her face. She flinched involuntarily, almost feeling the cold metal of the mask against her heated skin.

"Now, Raven, you should know. In my home, we practice _manners_." The word was a hiss, and yet still there was a disturbing amount of amusement in the tone.

Raven growled and pulled harder at her bindings, ignoring entirely the pain that poked spikes into her skull, each fresh wave of struggle reopening abrasions made by the metal shackles.

"You are the _last_ person I want to hear about _manners_ from. You are nothing but a selfish, heartless fucking monster."

A dramatic sigh released itself beside Raven's face, and she imagined she could almost feel the air brushing her cheek. It must have been the fear.

"Now, I really didn't want to do this but it seems you've given me no choice." His voice had changed, adopting a new darkness. She very much doubted there was anything her captor didn't want to do.

Raven heard him straighten up, stepping back around into her line of vision. Without giving her a second to react, he placed his palm directly over the middle of her forehead and spoke. Echoing and horrendous, it was not his voice that spilled from behind the mask, but the voice of a demon. The girl screamed as streaking lines of agony lanced her brain in an endless dance of despair, stripping and binding from her something that felt like her soul.

She did not realize it was her own screaming until the voices suddenly ceased and Slade removed his hand from her head. It tilted forward limply, feeling full of cotton and emptiness in contrast to her raw throat.

"What the _hell_ did you just do?" In a voice rough from screaming, Raven did all she could to sound demanding of an answer and stay conscious at the same time.

Slade replied simply. "That was merely a measure to guarantee my own safety in the future."

Growling deep in her aching chest, Raven chose destruction, releasing the frail hold she had had on her powers. One long second passed before she screamed again, resulting in nothing happening.

Nothing.

Raven breathed slowly, closing her eyes and doing her very best to center herself. "How did you get that incantation? Where did you get it?"

"From an old friend you might be familiar with."

Raven froze, her mind instantly jumping to the one place that particular spell could have originated to such a powerful degree. Slade let out his dark imitation of a laugh and nodded once as if in answer to her thoughts.

"Yes, my dear, I assume from that stricken expression, you know exactly to whom I am referring."

Raven pushed away the nausea building in her chest, forcing words out.

"My father is dead."

"I received this incantation long before you were born, when your father promised me a bride in return for a certain favour I performed."

The girl slowly came to what he meant, unable to hide the growing horror on her face. Slade leaned in close to her, nearly nose to nose.

"You were made for me, Raven."

Raven couldn't move, frozen in denial. Her voice was all that shook as she responded.

"You're lying."

"No, dear, I'm not."

"You have to be!" She screamed at him, the rage she had fought so hard to control, now coming to control her. Thrashing in her chair, she shrieked until her voice was long gone, wrists and ankles bloody and swelling around the cuffs that held them in place.

Slade watched with his hands behind his back, his mask allowing him an air of impassivity.

She finally fell still, panting like she had just outrun a thousand demons. She had no voice, and yet the whisper somehow reached Slade's ears.

"Release me."

Slade moved closer to her and stopped.

"No."

Raven's eyes darted up to his mask in anger, without any energy remaining to sate the fire behind them. He continued to speak with an arrogance that Raven wanted to carve out of him slowly, just to hear him scream.

"You will learn to behave like a civilized being. I do not tolerate animals in my home." He turned as if to leave her. "A drone will return when I deem you have earned the right to move. I suggest you learn quickly."

Without another word, Slade strode away through a rectangle of light revealed briefly as a door, leaving Raven to fight with her rage and her sorrow.

She could not help but realize that no matter the winner, she was loser.

\--

Time had lost its meaning by the time a Slade lookalike drone had come to retrieve Raven. Though at first she had continued to scream and fight against her shackles, it became increasingly obvious that there was no way out and without her powers she was barely as strong as a normal man. The metal restraints were likely designed for something much stronger.

Raven refused to let the pain in her body control her, closing her eyes and meditating as well as she could in her position. This would be a battle won by tactics, not force.

The slightest metal clicking had Raven on alert, watching for the drone Slade had said would come for her.

'I must have earned the right to move', her thoughts were bitter, but she let her expression remain steady. Her eyes were no doubt puffy with tears and she was sure she looked battle worn due to her attempts at a violent escape from that awful chair.

Rather than release her from the chair, the drone did something behind her back that triggered a mechanical sound. The mystery of what it might be was quickly solved when Raven's chair began to move on what she assumed were tiny wheels underneath the bottom.

The hallways all appeared too similar to remember the way back even a little and Raven doubted that the drone could speak. She would need to gather her information elsewhere and rely on the skills she had developed outside of her powers.

The drone and chair came to an abrupt halt in front of a door. It could have been a door in the tower, nondescript metal with a small keypad on the wall beside it. Try as she might, Raven was unable to see the short code that was typed in before her chair turned into what appeared to be a small bedroom quite similar to a hotel room.

A click sounded and the metal cuffs holding the girl's arms and legs released, but the door to her room was already closed. What she assumed was a locking mechanism made a sort of heavy thunk inside the door, a clear reminder that she was no guest.

SRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSR

Video screens flickered, lining the wall top to bottom and left to right, several dozen rooms all occupied. Raven was his current focus, however, his newest prize. There was a reason he did the things he did, and most of the reason was the thrill. Something about fighting a well trained and matched opponent was so much more satisfying than merely pulling off a certain crime here or there. Slade was a man of action and decisiveness.

He watched Raven stumble from the chair and almost fall onto the bed, lifting one ankle presumably to check the damage she had caused. Behind his mask, Slade frowned. This would not do, he liked any damage to his playthings to come directly from his own hands. There would have to be a talk concerning rules very soon. For now, he was amused enough by watching Raven poke around the corners of the room, testing the glass of the balcony door. It was bulletproof and sealed shut. There would be no way she could use that as an escape route even if she _could_ get outside to the balcony somehow. Eight stories would be quite far to fall.

The girl came quite near to finding several of the hidden cameras in her appointed room, but Slade could see now how she had depended on her power more than anything. Underneath there is a cowardly little girl who couldn't fight a bunny rabbit, much less himself.

No, no.. This would not do. If she were to be his bride, Slade would have to train her up to his level. She must learn to rely on more than just her powers.

As Slade let his eyes wander again over the rest of the screens on the wall, full of people, he knew just how to make it happen. He knew how to train and break the girl all at once and the grin that shone behind his mask was better off hidden.

SRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSR

The room wasn't uncomfortable really, Raven was actually surprised that she hadn't been thrown into some sort of dungeon, or at least somewhere not quite so..domestic? The blanket on the full sized bed was a plain black to match the sheets and the décor had splashes of silver and grey throughout. Everything appeared well taken care of and the fact confused Raven more thoroughly than anything had in a while.

Once she had been able to stand again, the girl used the adjoining tiny bathroom to wash her face and in general wake up from this nightmare. She had convinced herself that that is what this was, just a nightmare. And yet when she opened her eyes after nearly drowning in ice cold sink water, she was still staring at herself in the mirror, still a prisoner.

A bride.

SRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSR

Raven did not sleep that night, though it was not out of defiance. As she alternately stood and sat in front of the large window, for the first time in her life Raven allowed herself to be willingly consumed by fear. There was only darkness and terror, no light or any sort of redeeming shades of grey that reached out through the pitch. For all that the girl could tell, she was trapped more thoroughly than ever before. Not even the rage she allowed to take over long enough to scream any number of profanities in a language that was most certainly not English could return her powers.

However, this time was far worse than the last time Raven had found herself helpless and powerless. Last time she was stripped of all she was, merely a husk of a child remaining with no power and no hope.

Now, when she closed her eyes and meditated, Raven could feel that part of her soul where her power resided, only it lingered just out of her grasp. No matter how she tried, she could not touch it, could only barely see it. It was a far worse torture than losing a part of her spirit, for now she had it and could not touch.

She could say that about many things. To look and not touch was a torture indeed.

Sitting cross legged on the floor directly in front of her only window, Raven distracted her thoughts once again by surveying her new surroundings. Far below there was a courtyard, all greens and deep reds and golds and purples, it was as if royalty had been slain and left to bleed out their dignity, nobility and life. Not far off, an immense wall rose high and mighty. It would have been an scar through the rich colour were it not for the thick green ivy that climbed and twisted up and across and over the grey stone like the veins of nature, attempting to cover an ugly tumour.

The fall from such a height would kill the girl were she powerless, not that it truly mattered with how she was trapped. Raven had pounded on the glass as hard as she could, even going so far as to use the chair that had been neatly tucked in to the small wooden desk to bash at the window. The glass had held but two of the legs and part of the back of the chair had busted clean off.

Raven didn't even notice the places where splinters had sliced into her hands, so far gone was she.

SRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSR

Watching the heroine throw her temper tantrum had not entertained Slade for as long as he had expected. Even when she had the chair hoisted up into her hands, the man's focus had slid from the screen she occupied and taken a cursory look at those surrounding. There were several dozen large screens lining the wall, the console before them tended to by a short scrawny man in goggles. His fingers moved rapidly over the seemingly endless buttons and switches, though his eyes were jumping from one screen to another.

"Introduce her to the rules." Though the short man showed no sign of hearing Slade's command, his hands moved to a set of switches far enough up the console that he had to half rise from his chair. With three decisive clicks, three switches were flipped, the man's impassive expression remaining unshaken.

SRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSR

Had she not been alert and waiting for someone or something ever since the sun rose, Raven would not have heard the soft thunk of the dead bolt in her door giving way. Standing from her cross legged position in front of the window in one smooth movement, Raven put forth her best effort to look as fierce as possible for whomever might be entering.

The figure that shuffled in looked like Slade, though the hunched posture displayed quite clearly that it was merely a drone. In its hands, the drone held a platter with a metal cover. Eyes flickering between the drone and the door, Raven debated her real chances of escape. She was powerless and vulnerable, physical strength was never her strong suit. The hunched drone currently occupied the three feet of narrow hallway between the main open area and the door, holding out the platter as if expecting her to take it.

She decided.

Taking slow, cautious steps forward, Raven reached a hand out and curled her fingers around the sterling silver handle of the platter cover. In the space of a second, she pushed down and lunged head first over the drone, tumbling into the hallway and hitting the wall with a grunt. Jumping to her feet, Raven made it barely two yards down the hall when a sharp pain exploded in her lower back.

Tripping in her surprise, face smacking the floor first, Raven rolled another couple inches before falling still on her stomach. It felt as if she had broken her back and the sensation was so wrong, so not right, her limbs refused to cooperate. Two feet shuffled into her range of vision, drone feet, and she felt herself being lifted into metal arms, held like a baby, though there was no comfort in those arms.

Carrying her back into the room that had been designated hers, Slade's voice sounded through the robot, tinny and metallic, though no less chilling.

"You have been injected with a special technological nanovirus, a bug if you will, that I designed as a behavioral training tool." That explained the exploding pain in her lower back, the drone must have shot something at her. "When you follow my commands, you will be allowed to move about unrestrained. However, should you try to run, damage any more of my property, or disobey.." Raven's heart picked up as Slade's voice trailed off, the unknown was frightening. "Let us just say, it would be wise to mind your manners."

Dumping her unceremoniously on the bed, the robot picked up the platter from where it had fallen, retrieving the fruit that had been piled up next to several sandwiches and replacing them all neatly in their intended place. It did not put the platter down, rather just began to turn to the door. "If you have the energy to run, you obviously do not have any need for sustenance. Perhaps later."

Without another word, the drone left, the deadbolt clicking securely as the door closed once more.

The moment she was alone again, Raven felt sensation and feeling return to her limbs. That man was a monster. The chills settled in despite the sun beating in through the window, leaving Raven to pull down the blankets and curl up on the hateful bed. She was almost grateful for the fear induced nausea if only to forget about the food she hadn't been given. It had been nearly two days since her capture and hunger really had begun to chew at her stomach.

An awful thought occurred to her suddenly, Slade was going to make her beg for it.

Raven would rather starve.

Keeping her eyes firmly open and directed towards the window, the girl told herself she was merely going to lie down for a few moments until the chills had passed. Nothing more. She would not think about Slade, robots, food, freedom. She would not think.

SRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSRSR


	2. Student

The morning that followed her capture, as Raven slipped back into the waking world, her bleary eyes and fogged mind nearly fooled her into believing that her capture had been nothing more than a horribly realistic nightmare. Unfortunately, that hope was banished posthaste.

The sun was already high in the sky, Raven could guess by the position that it was at least noon, and the idle realization that there was no clock in her 'guest room' fluttered about in the back of her mind. As she shifted under the sheets, the fabric dragged over the abrasions on her wrists and ankles, drawing a hiss of pain. Her aching muscles had fared no better, and it was this that forced her to see how very much she had always relied on her powers. Not merely in battle, but also to heal her wounds at a significantly faster rate than any human.

Rising from the bed slowly, Raven settled in front of the window again to meditate. She slipped out of reality easily, but even in her own mind she was reminded of her captivity by the sliver of her soul that contained the key to her power hovering just out of reach. While she chanted, it did little good to truly center her.

"Raven." Slade's voice emanated from the very walls, it seemed, startling the girl from her attempts at meditation. Instantly upright in a defensive position, Raven bit back the pain in her body so as not to show weakness. As if it mattered. "There is a folder on the desk, read it." A glance at the desk revealed that there was indeed a folder, and she was pretty sure it hadn't been there the day before.

Raven struggled between the desire to defy Slade and the curiosity as to what the thick folder might hold. "What is it?" She questioned with a suspicious narrowing of her eyes, still attempting to locate the source of the voice.

"Read it." Hard and commanding, Slade repeated himself. Crossing to the desk, Raven vaguely regretted breaking the chair.

Nothing on the outside of the plain brown folder gave any indication as to what lay within, it could have been any one of the billions of folders used in offices across the country. The knot that had been forming deep in Raven's belly only grew thicker as she flipped through pages, scanning each one for whatever it was that Slade wanted her to see. It was just a timetable. Dates and times stretched up the side and across the top pf each sheet of paper, something typed in every box.

"From this day forward, this will be how you spend your days." Raven didn't even need to ask before the man was explaining. Her expression twisted into something like disbelief, a few short laughs jumping up from her chest.

"What makes you think you can tell me what to do?" Dropping the folder on the desk again and letting loose a defiant shout.

In a split second she was nothing more than a writhing figure on the ground, her entire body feeling as if it were on fire from the inside out. She shrieked, almost hoping the pain would kill her, for there was no way she could survive such an onslaught with her sanity intact.

Slade watched from the comfort of his control room, gesturing to the goggled man to stop after a long minute. Immediately, Raven fell still, not daring to move. Hair mussed, chest heaving as she gasped, and bruised and bloodied limbs splayed in a mockery of art, Slade savoured this sliver of surrender.

"I trust that you will read through the schedule that I have provided, as well as some rules that I've included."

Slade did not wait for an answer as he exited the control room.

* * *

Heavy panting and the sounds of combat echoed in the large training room, bouncing from concrete wall to floor to ceiling. In only eight months, Raven had become a force to be reckoned with.

The first week had been the worst. She defied at every opportunity, refusing to follow her schedule as commanded, and was thus punished through lack of food. By the end of the fourth day in which she had nothing more than water from the tap, Raven had given up. If she were to starve, she would never gain the strength she needed to escape. The looming fact that she may still be unable to escape without her powers was always there, in the back of her mind, and yet if she chose to acknowledge this, she knew it would dash the small remaining hope she still possessed.

Sparring with the drones had become increasingly simpler. Two months of purely strength training followed by six months of intensive daily sparring had defined her, filling out her slight curves with muscle. Each and every day, she was forced to dine with Slade for the evening meal. She had made a game of it to preserve her own sanity and sense of self, pretending as if she were here of her own free will, that she had _chosen_ to train in such a harsh manner. The very first time he had shown his face had come as a shock. Half of it was disfigured, marred by scars atop scars, twisted together to create a grotesque mask like effect itself. Raven had aimed her eyes downward, fighting the desire to stare.

He never stopped trying to draw her into conversation, and she never stopped ignoring him. This tactic had not lasted for quite as long as she had hoped however, and she was not fed as before. Through trial and error, Raven was able to find a balance between responding and staying silent that allowed her to react as if on autopilot.

In addition to the demanding training schedule, Raven was taught many things. A short, skinny man in goggles that introduced himself simply as the Professor would summon her for two hours in the afternoons each day and introduce her to the world of organized crime. The atrocities that she slowly became privy to horrified her, and more than once she had become physically ill from the images and descriptions handed down in her lessons as if they were of no real consequence.

Eight months, and Raven was struggling to hold onto herself. In her training, she felt a rush of... not happiness, but perhaps satisfaction after every positive comment Slade would put forth as far as her technique was concerned. Eight months, and her lessons with the Professor became less of a horrifying nightmare and more of a cold reality. The ties that bound each faction in the crime world were an intricate web of deceit and cautious trust that she had very little doubt would continue on no matter how many heroes fought it. The darkness was a rising tide, and each day she was sea glass, battered over and over until she found herself becoming something different. Something unbreakable, but forever broken.

With a hard final blow, Raven destroyed the drone that had been sent to play sparring partner, staring down at the shattered technology with cold eyes.

"Very good." Slade's voice reverberated. Lifting her eyes as ever to look in the direction of the hidden camera, Raven's expression flickered from cold to satisfied in the space of a heartbeat. As much as she desired freedom still, and to see the look on the man's face when she escaped using everything he taught her, there was no denying that garnering even a smidgen of Slade's approval left her with a lingering sense of triumph. Were she still the girl who had first come to this place, she would not recognize what she had become. She would revile this new Raven, the far colder and far less heroic woman paying witness to the world's dark underbelly and doing nothing to shine a light.

"Send another." The woman fell into a battle stance as she demanded a new opponent, intent on losing herself in physical stress so that she would not be able to see the cracks spreading further along her flawed soul each and every day, allowing the dark to leak in and influence her every thought.

\--

Gloved fingers hovered above the keys with a measure of uncertainty, though it was hardly a benign expression. The bespectacled man watched Raven on his screens with a wild fervour, noting each weak point and each strike, every twist and every time a muscle flexed where it had not before. The girl was growing, and growing quickly. Narrowing his focus, the Professor examined the battling figure with pure, unadulterated interest.

"How is our girl faring?" Despite the practice he had had over the last two decades of working under the man, the Professor jumped at the sudden sounding of his voice from the doorway. Cursing inwardly, he promised himself that he would not again be caught unawares even as he nodded swiftly to Slade. A promise frequently made and broken.

"Her progress is accelerated, I would say. Abnormally so", spoke the Professor evenly, airing a concern that he had been fostering not for the first time in the past weeks. Waving a dismissive hand, Slade's gaze was fixed on the screens and the girl currently dismantling several drones at once.

"I've already told you, she is stripped of her powers. I was given a guarantee that she would be powerless." Annoyance glinted in the man's voice. "Dead or not, I do not care to question a demon, do you?" The Professor flinched at the threat, having never been a fan of the supernatural, despite the fact that it was that that had returned his master to life at one point. It wasn't any sort of measurable science, and that alone left him squirming in his seat in a manner reminiscent of an uncomfortable student under a teacher's critical eye. Snorting humorously at the man's discomfort, Slade clapped his shoulder firmly. "Don't worry so much. She's hardly got anywhere to run, even if she tried."

The Professor remained uncomfortable in his seat as the other man exited, trusting his longtime assistant to watch his latest protégé and assure that any damage she caused was merely the result of training. Resentful eyes did indeed keep their focus on the girl, though not quite for the reason they should have.

* * *

Slick with sweat and sore from battle, Raven's body heaved. It was only in the last two months that she had learned to navigate the labyrinth of hallways that made up the compound, leaving her without the need for a drone companion anytime she wished to leave the room that had been designated hers. The clothing that clung to her new muscular frame was no longer hers, not what she had been accustomed to wearing, and had not been for a very long time. Initially she had resisted the training gear that she was given, finding it far too similar to Slade's own for her comfort. And yet, after too many session ended with her unguarded body falling useless, bruised and even once with a broken rib, she had relented and donned the armoured sparring gear.

Stripping the pads away, Raven pretended as if she was unaware of the cameras that she was certain lined every hallway and room. She had yet to hear Slade's voice in her own room again after the very first time, but the fact remained that there had to be a way for him to see her even there. Only by pretending that somehow she could not be seen in the little bathroom connected to her sleeping quarters was she able to get by; she was not sure if there was enough time in the world for her to feel comfortable disrobing when she was sure she was being watched.

Skin prickling under what she felt was a constant gaze, even while under the shower's spray, Raven made quick work of the sweat and grime coating her skin and clothed herself in the plain black pants and red shirt she always found clean in one of her drawers. That made her wonder after the fear and pain of the first months had worn away, was it a drone who did the laundry? Even her situation could not erase the humour of the image as it unfolded in her thoughts of a Slade replica washing her clothes. Did it wash Slade's clothing as well?

The man was just that, a man, she was sure, and yet even after becoming used to seeing his face on a daily basis at the evening meal, there was an aura of unreality that clung to him that she could not unsee. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she never saw him garbed in anything but the armoured gear that he always donned. Perhaps it was the way that his face never seemed anything but calm, even in the beginning when she had hurled her steaming soup at his already mangled face. Whatever the reason, the effect was the same, and it was one that Raven had yet to reconcile with.

As she pulled the clothes down over her body, there was another thought that struck her when she was not distracted with training, or 'learning' from the Professor. The very first night, she had been informed she was to be a bride. A _bride._ Sold.. _created_ by her father to be such. The images and assumptions she had formed on that night were ones that filled her with an unspeakable dread and terror, and yet since that first day, it had not been mentioned. Slade had made more than one off-handed comment about her lack of power, but there had been nothing more said of her purpose. Though months had passed, Slade had done nothing to.. _claim_ her. Body flushing at the thought, the very _idea_ of Slade behaving in that manner, Raven took what had become her customary place in front of her one large window and closed her eyes with determination. Her chant was steady, but her innards were not. What could she do if Slade were to come to her, or demand that she come to him, to fulfill her _purpose_? She had yet to truly consider why Slade might request such a thing from her father at all, but she very much doubted it was anything to do with feeling. If the man could even do such a thing as feel, she would be surprised.

As ever, meditation was a reminder of what she had lost as much as it was a method of steady her thoughts. That part of her that Slade had managed to detach hung just out of her reach. Forever.

Eyes opening to look out on to the world her window revealed, Raven allowed her thoughts to spread in a manner she generally discouraged. She thought of her friends, and what exactly they must be thinking, doing. In the very beginning, she had thought that perhaps they would find her, that they would rescue her from the hell of playing bride (or student or whatever it was that Slade had her doing), but they did not. Slade, for his part, had behaved exactly as she expected, his smug expression obvious even behind the mask. After months of nothing, Raven had let the hopelessness take her, giving up in the training she had been forced to and refusing to fight even when attacked. This had not lasted long, as Slade merely resorted to the torture that the little nanites within her veins could cause.

There was a day when Raven had decided to let the nanites kill her, when she had given up completely on all thoughts of rescue or escape. It was that day that she had learned that Slade was far worse than she ever knew. That day in her lessons, he had taken the place of the Professor, she was introduced to a facility in which Slade employed many scientists to work on experiments that she could not even fathom the intention of from the soundless video feed she was presented with. What she _could_ fathom, however, was the slow and painful manner in which these experiments were being drawn out on their human subjects. Their pain, Slade had informed her, was entirely her fault. Her silence prompted him to explain that these subjects were generally allowed a narcotic that took away any pain from what they were being subjected to, and for each day that she had refused to comply with his wishes, this narcotic had been taken away. Raven had had to fight the urge to be physically ill at the thought that these people had been suffering for all of the five days she had been defiant.

Raven closed her eyes on the world, unwilling to look down on the dark buildings. She did not doubt that everything she could see belonged to Slade, as she had become quite privy to the expanse of his dark empire in her lessons. The man had a hand in nearly every illegal industry that could be imagined, and he was efficient in his methods of dealing with those who defied him. This thought was bitter in Raven's throat, lingering on her tongue. After the horrors she had been taught were an everyday reality, she almost felt lucky in her own treatment.

Drawing her chin onto her hands as she watched the outside world, Raven felt her soul dim further. The white noise of a speaker startled her to her feet in an instant, but it was not Slade's voice that echoed in her chambers.

"I request your presence." The Professor's 'request' hung heavy in the air, quickening Raven's heartbeat with its unexpected coming. She saw the man each day for her lessons, but she had yet to see him elsewhere. He did not join them at the evening meal, and she could not truly recall ever even having seen him budge from his chair.

Making her way through the hallways with purpose, despite the uncertainty raging through her veins, Raven wondered what exactly she could have done in recent days that would warrant extra attention from the man who had, seemingly, no soul to speak of.


	3. Lucifer

The silence that encompassed every room in the compound that Raven had seen thus far did not seem to have captured this one. There was a whispering sort of echo that the girl could not place, and a sound that took her a moment to identify as the tweeting of birds. Every window in the place was soundproof as far as she could tell from her captivity, and yet somehow the sound was still leaking through. Lightening unexpectedly, the tint in the windows began to fade and let in more natural light of the likes of which Raven had not seen since her capture.

"Leave." The voice, rather than coming from the walls, originated off to the side of the room. The Professor stood stiffly beside a door, tapping out a long code on a key pad and then fixing the girl with a hard stare. Nervous energy flickered in his eyes as the door slid into the wall and let in a solid pillar of sunlight that cut across the floor. After so long as a prisoner, Raven was uncertain and unnerved by the motion and the freedom that stood so very near and within reach.

"What?" she asked incredulously, not moving. Part of her screamed that this had 'trap' written all over it, while the larger part urged her to take her chance and flee as fast as possible.

" _Leave_ ", the man repeated harshly. "Get _out_!" Raven hesitated, stepping forward once before answering with narrowed eyes and a careful, "Why?" Giving an impatient huff and glancing towards the open door and then the door that Raven had entered from, the Professor gestured quickly for her to go.

Before she could take another step, the door slid shut with a solid thunk, making both the Professor and Raven start in surprise.

"Really, Lucifer? Betraying me again?" Slade spoke as he took quick steps from the shadows, what looked like a large gun aimed directly at the Professor. The shot made no sound, but buried itself in the Professor's forehead. Dropping instantly, the crack of his skull on the floor might have made Raven flinch once, long ago. "I would have thought you'd have learned your lesson by now." Surveying the Professor's body with an impassive eye, Slade commanded a stunned Raven without looking at her. "Go back to your room, Raven."

Blinking quickly as her brain tried to assimilate the Professor's death and the fact that he had a name (of course he had a name), Raven was frozen in place and did not speak. Her silence displeased the man, evidenced by the contained anger in his single exposed eye when he turned it on her, repeating himself with a healthy dose of venom in his tone. "Go _back_ to your _room_ , Raven."

Feeling an awful mixture of agony over the lost chance at freedom and something equally unpleasant relating to Slade's anger and the Professor's death, Raven turned and fled.

* * *

The red tinted light coated Lucifer's still and bare body, giving him an almost lifelike glow. Slade's hands were steady, strapping the dead man's wrists and ankles to the medical table and securing straps around upper thighs and arms as well, as if to keep him from fleeing. "Oh Lucifer..", he murmured as he worked, tools prepared on a rolling tray beside him, "How many times must I break you?" Plucking a pair of medium sized tweezers from the tray, Slade bent slightly to get a better look at the bullet lodged in Lucifer's head. Glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, he swabbed away the dried blood from the wound and pried out the red stained bullet.

Not even a half second passed before screams began to issue from the bound man's lungs, life returning to his body in a painful rush. The open wound in his head knit itself together over the course of ten screaming seconds, by the end of which he had fallen into considerably quieter sobbing. "Why? Why?" It might have been a real question, or it might have been nonsensical and nonspecific wonderings of a condemned man. Either way, it was greeted only by a smile on Slade half destroyed face.

"My dear Lucifer", he said in a low voice that could very nearly pass for gentle, head tilting to the side just a bit, "You should know by now that I cannot live without you.." In a much harder tone, Slade added, "And you are not permitted to die unless I allow it."

* * *

Raven paced within her room hastily, crossing the room back and forth with bouncing steps. Each step only added to her wondering thoughts and brought her closer to the awful realization that she had just watched a man die in front of her and her greatest concern had been whether she had squandered her chance at freedom or not. Change was a subtle poison, she thought, a monster that had contorted her into something she did not recognize, a person who could let a man die before her and not question the one who shot him, only obey silently. Goosebumps dragged down her arms as she awaited god-only-knew what.

Hours passed before the walls sounded, Slade summoning her.

The medical room he had told her to come to was one in which she had been a patient more than once, and she could only think that he wanted her to view the Professor's, Lucifer's, body as just another example of what happened to those who disobeyed him. The sight that greeted her was most unexpected however, and pulled her like a dog on a leash, or a sleepwalker with a daydream.

Slade hovered beside a bed, hands behind his back, watching intently as a drone made notes on what must have been a medical chart for the bandaged man hooked to beeping machines. Approaching in awe, Raven could just make out Lucifer's face between strips of white gauze that wrapped his head and half of his face. Blankets covered the rest of his body, but the girl imagined she could see the lumps of further dressings beneath the surface.

Wide eyes shifted from Lucifer to Slade, finding the standing man already looking at her with an imperceptible expression. In the wake of her shock over the Professor's apparent survival of a gunshot to the head, Raven asked without fear, "What's going on here?" For the first time in her captivity, the first time ever, Raven saw conflict in Slade's exposed face. Difficult to make out and disguised by a layer of ice and something that screamed superiority, yes, but there was emotion that deviated from smugness and blended into what might almost be concern.

"You have a new task," spoke Slade simply, surprising the girl further as he answered her question. Certainly, it was not exactly the answer she was seeking, but it was not a scolding and it was not a brutal extra training session. "There is no replacement for human touch in the care of the wounded, so you will watch over Lucifer as he heals."

Nothing could have surprised Raven more, except perhaps an honest smile from Slade, that the man would want his employee looked after. Did there exist some connection of which Raven was unaware between the two men? A connection that would prompt Slade to attempt to heal a would-be fatal wound he himself had caused? The darkness she had seen on a daily basis for the better part of her captivity was a sharp contrast to the task she was now expected to perform, and it baffled her completely. Her heart jumped though, at the chance to do some good again, and it was that that kept her from arguing, or even questioning for the moment. It was obvious that the injured man was important in some way, and it was likely that the two men were closer than she had realized. Watching over the Professor might be just what she needed to find out some of Slade's secrets, and maybe even the only way to find out just why he was waiting so long to act when he'd already informed her of his intentions for her. Her purpose here.

The drone removed part of the medical file it was holding and handed it to Raven as she walked to the bed, taking the remainder of the file away. The papers were basic charts for her to fill out concerning Lucifer's vitals each hour and any other changes, but that was it. Raven was disappointed at the lack of information on the man's past that the full file would have provided, but her attention was diverted by Slade once again. "You will alert me immediately if anything changes."

It was a statement, not a request, as ever, as the man strode from the room, fighting the worry that threatened to display itself on his face.

\--

Raven replaced the IV bag dutifully, making sure that there was no air in the tube leading to the Professor's arm. No, Lucifer, she reminded herself, as he had told her to address him during one of his short moments of consciousness and clarity. Lucifer. Smoothing his blankets with a now practiced hand, the girl was careful to avoid pressing on where she now knew he had sustained other injuries. A shattered left forearm and a destroyed left leg, calf muscles slashed, were the most serious of his wounds, but not the only. The bruises covered nearly every inch of skin, though they had begun to fade into a sickly green and yellow. She had questioned him the very first time his eyes had fluttered, two days after she was charged with his care, and demanded to know what had caused the wounds. He hadn't answered, but the fear in his eyes had spoken volumes. He was only conscious for a few short minutes; she did not question him again.

The tap of footsteps drew her attention to the door, where Slade appeared without a word. Nodding in greeting and returning to her task of replacing the dressing around Lucifer's head, Raven only kept her breathing in check because of the intense training she had been forced to endure. It was strange really, to see a different side of this man, this monster. (Her monster?) She rolled her shoulders in response to the idiotic thought. She wasn't some sort of weak idiot who would crawl into the hole of Stockholm's Syndrome and never again see the light of day.

Slade had made it a habit to come each day to check on Lucifer, looking through the charts that Raven kept regularly and reading through the information available on the computer monitors that kept track of his every heartbeat and brain wave. All this, he did in silence, and Raven considered this a gift. There was something in her that had changed the very moment she saw the man beside the hospital bed that very first time she was summoned to Lucifer's side, and she did not find that 'uncomfortable' was a strong enough word to describe the sensation. Her skin prickled, as if a cactus was growing beneath the surface and beginning to press for freedom, and her head was heavy and light all at once. She never could tell if she was going to feel extraordinarily off balance, or extremely focused during Slade's daily visits, and it was something of which she did not approve. The control she so treasured had been stripped from her with her capture, but just as she had begun to feel in control of herself (at the very least), her body betrayed her.

"Has he spoken again?" Slade asked in a low voice, his eyes having fixed on Raven when she wasn't paying attention. Raven was startled by the generally silent man's words, and unsettled by his knowledge. _Again_ , he had said. The first time the Lucifer awoke, he had not said a word, but in the following short bursts of consciousness, he had tried haltingly to speak with her. He had asked the questions one would expect from a man lingering between asleep and awake, like _where am I?_ and _what's going on?_. But after he seemed to become more aware during these states, he had started saying things that didn't always make very much sense. He would mumble about demons and home, and ask her if she wanted to hear a story, like a child. These things were so very strange, and seemed somehow like secrets, prompting her to merely record increased brain activity, and not the fact that he had spoken. It was unclear why his words had been so.. just odd, and yet how they could still sound so true, and also why Raven would feel the need to hide them.

She should have known better than to assume Slade wouldn't be watching. He was always watching. His eyes glittered in a way that said he knew just what she was thinking, and it left her unable to answer verbally, merely responding with a shake of her head.

"Pity. I recall he wanted to tell you a story." Setting aside the chart he had been reading, Slade stepped towards Raven with an air of pure command, only stopping once he had entered her personal space. One hand lifted to touch her cheek with an uncharacteristic tenderness that ended as quickly as it had begun. "It is important for the sick to feel valid."

Raven, uncertain as to the tender touch and as to what Slade was trying to do, watched the man leave the room as silently as he had appeared.

"Looks like I have permission to talk to you. Now will you listen?" Lucifer's voice was rough as he spoke from his bed. Turning to find him trying to sit up on his own, Raven darted back to his side to assist and keep the man from injuring himself further.

* * *

Slade nursed a healthy glass of whiskey as he sat, fixated on a slab of rock that lay behind a shimmering force field. Quite obviously ancient, though remarkably well preserved, the stone was carved with intricate pictograms and symbols that no mind on earth would be likely to translate within a single lifetime. Satisfaction was so far off a goal, the man felt nearly sick to his stomach. This plan, his masterpiece, so long in the making. Right now was the turning point, and a single screw up would set him back far longer than he cared to consider.

Lucifer's voice sounded from speakers attached to the monitoring screens on the other side of the room, but Slade already knew well the story he was telling.

Finishing the measure of whiskey in his glass and pouring another, Slade traced his eyes over the slab of rock with familiar ease. Each symbol and pictogram were as known to him as if he had carved them himself. So long had he stared at this object, had he studied it and the meaning it held, he could not count the seconds, minutes, hours. The promise held within the simple thing was a promise of a new.. everything.

He could and _would_ have everything. After all, it wasn't as if the effort could kill him.


	4. Challenger

_The heavy stone armour weighed Raven's limbs to a degree she had not expected, most especially after having gained so very much more strength during the period of time in which she was forced to train under such a hard taskmaster. The man in question had become ever more of an enigma throughout her time in his 'care', to the point where she no longer tried to decipher the meaning behind any of his actions. She had come to accept that she was a prisoner, yes, and that thinking of her future would only drive her into a pit of madness and despair the likes of which she did not have the tools to escape. So, though it was uncharacteristic, she had allowed herself to become accustomed to this particular hell, knowing that it could be far worse._

_Each day she rose, she cared for Lucifer where he lay nearly healed but still unable to walk properly, she trained in what she had come to call her free time, as if it were a thing that could exist, and she ate the evening meal with her captor. The tedium of caring for the injured man had at first been a balm to the open wounds within that were carelessly reopened each time she was forced to hear one of his 'lessons'. However, boredom had proven a greater adversary than trauma and a rebellious and traitorous part of her, a part which she suspected still belonged to her father, began to miss the interesting if horrifying hours she had spent under his tutelage. His periods of consciousness, having become far more steady, frequent and lengthy, were filled with stories, epics, sagas. All were ancient and while she assumed all were merely ramblings of a sedated mind, she began to hear a ring of truth in some of the tales._

* * *

"Raven", the weak voice caught the girl's meandering attention, "water." It was as close to a request as Lucifer ever came, using her actual name rather than 'girl' and speaking his need rather than gesturing vaguely and expecting her to know just what he desired. Moving swiftly to fulfill his need, Raven held the tall glass near his mouth, aiming the straw so his dry lips could grasp it. When he was sated, he breathed out heavily and said something Raven had never heard from him, "Thank you."

Wondering idly if perhaps she had overdosed the man during his last round of painkillers, the girl paused before responding, "You're welcome." There was no more from him, and Raven resigned herself to a silent day.

* * *

"Tell me, Raven, how do you like the stories you have been hearing?" Slade asked, cutting through the silence that generally accompanied the evening meal. Raven's brow ruffled as she pondered just why Slade would care how she enjoyed anything before she answered, "They're just fine." The sound of cutlery was overshadowed by a low murmur of disapproval. "Come now", said the man, "You must have more to say on the matter." Setting her fork and knife aside, Raven remained silent for a minute, just staring at the man opposite her.

The long table provided room, the stretch of dark finished wood erecting a sort of barrier that allowed not only Raven, but Slade as well, a particular sort of protection. Personal space in which to think. Examining the man across this space, Raven felt as if the longer she stared, the more she penetrated whatever invisible wall existed just between them. It had been happening far more often as of late, the strange sensation that begged for contact. It might not have been entirely unexpected, this desire for human touch, or even closeness, but Raven had not expected it to hit her with such severity when she did, in fact, touch Lucifer daily during care. Certainly, the touch was more of a clinical sort, and not the kind of unwanted but unusually comfortable hugs she might have received from friends in days gone by, but it must count for something.

"Raven." Slade spoke her name with the blend of benevolence and threat that only he could seem to accomplish, drawing her from her reverie. "Sorry", she answered automatically, finding herself actually reddening slightly in the face at the fact that the man had caught her in the midst of daydreaming about how she might like to sit a bit closer. These thoughts were unwelcome, and it suddenly occurred to the girl that she had not meditated in weeks. How had that happened?

Before her thoughts could run away with her once more, Raven continued, "I like the stories. They're strange." What more could she say? She expected no more to come of it, for Slade to accept her answer with a hum or a silent nod, but she was again surprised.

"How are they strange?" Slade asked simply, slicing into the chicken breast on his plate with the idleness of someone asking for the salt to be passed. Gaze directing down to her own plate, Raven looked as if she might find her answer in her green beans. "They're.." she struggled, "..old."

Laughter brought Raven's hackles up instantly, shock flooding her system as she looked up to find the normally calm and even man laughing at her. "So are you", he responded through his laughter, causing the girl's defences to raise. It wasn't a matter she preferred to think about, much less discuss, but she certainly was not anywhere near the age she appeared. The days on the planet she had grown up on were far longer in comparison to the days on Earth, resulting in her Earthly age being at least five times that of what she appeared. On her planet she was young, but on planet Earth she was considered of retirement age.

"How do you-" Raven made as if to ask how the man acquired this knowledge, only to interrupt herself with a snort. Of course it was clear how the man knew anything about her. Her father had certainly shared this when.. The discrepancy crept up when she wasn't paying attention and bashed her with the sudden realization. As this revelation made itself apparent on her features, Slade's humour calmed, eyes focusing solely on her in a way that left her feeling far more than 'uncomfortable'.

"I seem to have prompted a thought. Do share, my Raven." The smile on the man's face was settled, smug. Too busy with her racing thoughts to bristle at the way he called her 'his', Raven spoke carefully, working her way through the thought that the man had indeed caused, "You… are not as old as I am. Not in your appearance." Wide eyes narrowed at the man. "How could I have been.. 'made' for you, if you were not born until after I was?" The truth of her existence spoken aloud drew gooseflesh across Raven's arms, food forgotten.

"Well, Raven", said Slade smoothly, patting at his mouth with a napkin before continuing, "You are not as old as you appear. Neither am I."

* * *

_The stone did not damage Raven's skin as she had expected, so smoothly was it hewn. If she were not told by the maker of the armour himself, she might have assumed it were merely synthesized to appear like rock. Appearances could be deceiving, after all, a lesson she had been forced to learn. Directing her gaze across the battlefield to the lone figure awaiting her signal, there was nothing Raven could think of to fight her way from this situation that did not end with her loss._

_Breathing heavily, she recalled just days before, when she had thought the stories she was being told were all fakery, legends of mediocre men expanded to seem mighty. How she wished she still believed such._

* * *

"Please, tell me more." Raven leaned against the side of the hospital bed, listening far more eagerly to the story of the day than she had any time before. More than ever, she was convinced that the injured man was trying to tell her something as he recounted a tale of a mighty warrior called 'Slate'.

"He was undefeated, undefeatable, practically immortal some people said, and you know, they never found his body." Lucifer's eyes lingered unsteadily in the corner as he told his tale. "Slate lived before the dawn of time, back when energy could still be used as a power source, and people could heal themselves through the use of things found in the Earth as easily as going to a doctor. He was the brother of a leader, the advisor, and he was good. He was so very good, and so very loved." Pausing, Lucifer closed his eyes, as if in pain. Raven hung on his words. "There was another tribe that wanted to group together with Slate's, but they wanted to do so for dark reasons. Slate's tribe lived near a spring that had the types of minerals that could cure anything, and it was rare. They guarded it and kept it only for those with the most dire illnesses, but the other tribe wanted it, convinced that it could make anyone immortal. The leader of this other tribe was greedy and cruel man, he wasn't able to see that the spring was delicate and needed to be kept balanced. Slate tried to tell his leader that the other tribe only wanted to bring ill to his people, but the leader was thinking only of expanding. He thought only of the power he could have leading a tribe twice the size." Shaking his head, Lucifer fell silent, turning his head away.

Raven waited on bated breath to hear the rest, unable to look past the similarity in name despite the unlikelihood that Slade could be a hero of any sort. Deep breathing signalled to her that the man in the bed had fallen asleep, causing her to curse aloud. Settling back in her chair, Raven questioned herself. Was she becoming obsessed with this idea that the stories meant anything at all? Was she looking for something to believe in a place that had stripped away all the faith she held in everything she had ever known? Slade was a charismatic man, that she could not deny, and he was apparently far older than she had first assumed. But was it truly possible that he was some hero of old that had lost his way and on this path somehow requested a bride from a demon and erected a criminal kingdom over which he could rule without mercy?

There was no way of being certain.

"He was loved." Lucifer stated shortly, ending several hours of silence and Raven's thoughts running her in complete circles. She waited for more, anything, only to find herself utterly disappointed. The man had been talking in his sleep.

* * *

_Raven took up her elegant sword with intent, preparing to lift it into the air and signal that she was prepared for the duel that would end her._

* * *

" _He was loved."_ The words stayed with Raven throughout the night as she lay with eyes fixed upon the dark nothing above her. She had always preferred the darkness, solitude, a certain distance from everyone. But here, in this place, she found each of these things that had once provided such solace and comfort now suffocated her with their inevitability. The thought that she was formerly able to find comfort in these things merely because she knew subconsciously that the opposite was there as an option as well was a discomforting one, and it made her feel as old as she appeared.

Still, Raven was torn between the knowledge she had acquired, her suspicions, and the fact that she truly knew next to nothing of Slade. Yes, she was now rather intimately aware of his 'business' practices and all the horrors they entailed, but of the man himself she was helplessly in the dark. This dark was suffocating as well.

The lights above her began to brighten, signalling sunrise just beyond the heavily tinted windows. Raven wondered at the reason behind the tint, or if there even was one. The amusing thought that Slade was some sort of undead creature that feared the light crept up, drawing a vague laugh as she rose from the bed to dress for her morning training session.

As per usual, Raven entered the well-equipped gym, taking a towel from the rack beside the door and flinging it jauntily over her shoulder, the thought of Slade as a roving zombie amusing enough to lighten her mood. Then again, she thought as she broke into a short jog-run-walk cycle on one of the several treadmills lining one wall, for all she knew those stories came from some legend of a man living longer than he ought. Thoughts of the ridiculous creatures of 'horror' that plagued the modern movies and video games brought to mind a subject she often elected to ignore in the current days. Her friends.

What were they doing? Were they worried after her? Were they searching for her still? After so very long, Raven couldn't hope so, but knowing her stubborn friends... She stumbled, tripping up and nearly falling before catching her balance. A humoured chuckle drew her attention snapping to the door, where Slade stood with a smirk that would be mocking were it any larger.

Throwing the man a scowl, she returned to her routine, unaccustomed to having her morning run interrupted, seeing as it was something she elected to do on her own before breakfast and the inevitable 'lesson' that would cause her to lose her appetite for lunch. She felt she might have gained a bit in the last days as she maintained her appetite without Lucifer's 'lessons'.

"Don't be like that." Slade said idly as he took the place beside her, setting the treadmill to a pace just slightly faster than her own. Feeling a bit one-upped by the still amused man, Raven stabbed at the button on her workout device, speeding her pace to just faster than his. Noting the change, Slade gave a short scoffing-laugh before speeding his own device. The cycle continued until both were flat out running, breathing heavily. Raven did not want to give up, pressing herself further than she generally would on the first workout of the day, but Slade would not slow. She refused to let the man win when he had already taken so much from her.

Ten solid minutes of sprinting came to an end suddenly when Slade reached for a thin watch-looking device wrapping his wrist that Raven had not noticed before, punching a series of buttons, directly after which both treadmills immediately shut down, slowing swiftly enough that Raven nearly lost her footing. Breathing hard, hands on the handlebars of the treadmill as she got her wind back, the girl frowned, "Why did you do that? I was winning."

"No, dear girl, you weren't. But it's adorable that you think so." Despite his cocky words, Slade's shirt, an unusually casual grey that matched Raven's own, was sticking to his body and dark from sweat. Though he wouldn't admit it, Raven could see that the man had begun to tire only shortly after she had. She noted this for later, Slade wasn't built to sprint for very long, and his endurance didn't match his speed.

"Whatever", she waved a hand, using her towel to wipe her face. "I'm done here anyway."

Raven swore there was satisfaction in the smirk she glimpsed Slade sporting as she turned to leave.

* * *

"Slate swung a hand down on the invader's skull, the crack sickening him as the man collapsed.."

Raven was settled comfortably in the chair beside Lucifer's bed, listening to the story that he told animatedly, hands gesturing wildly as he spun the tale. Almost overnight the man had healed exponentially, his bruising fading as if it had been months and not weeks since he was injured to a point that he might not ever have fully recovered. It was astonishing really, but most astonishing was the change that had come over the man, also seemingly overnight.

Where he had once sat still and unmoving but for his lightning hands, swift eyes and sharp tongue before a bank of computer screens and an immense control panel, now he was a man come alive. His hands gesticulated as he spoke, eyes alight with a light not unlike that which Raven remembered lived in Starfire's. Perhaps more jaded and not quite so naïve, but quite similar. The second thought of her friends in as many days was disheartening, especially after how hard she had worked to forget everything that she had lost. There was no doubt in her mind that Slade never intended to allow her freedom, but she could keep a careful eye out for the day that he slipped. She wouldn't let another opportunity to run pass her by.

"Raven!" Snapping fingers before her eyes startled Raven back into the world of the living, where Lucifer was piercing her with a sour look. He had been recounting an even older tale of Slate, one of a battle where he took out at least half of the enemies' army by himself, before the time in which his leader, his brother, led the tribe to their doom. "Pay attention. This is history."

Raven nodded, drawing her features into nothing but pure and unwavering attention, though her mind was elsewhere. Lucifer continued when he ascertained that he had Raven's undivided attention, unknowing that she was thinking of someone not present.

Where would she be now if not for Slade? He was a monster, but a man, and at this point she was slipping into the mindset that perhaps this wasn't really so horrible. As the thought crossed her mind, a melodic 'boom' echoed through the speakers, followed by a rushing noise that might have been a gush of wind, or a tidal wave.

On her feet in an instant, Raven was on alert, and finding no source of the noise in the room, she assumed it must have come from somewhere outside, obviously, dashing through the door to find it. The rushing sound persisted, flowing through the hallway loudly enough that Raven couldn't hear the generally loud tap of her shoes against the floor.

"Slade!", she shouted with intending to, calling for the only other person that she was certain was in the vicinity. Flushing as she turned into the large room in which they often sparred, Raven's eyes fell to Slade, standing calmly in the center. In his hands was a tablet, broken in two. Raven couldn't make out the markings from where she stood, but a light was emanating from them, and it seemed the noise was as well.

"You've accepted your role far more quickly than I would have assumed. Splendid." He spoke calmly, his voice cutting impossibly through the deafening sounds.

"What are you talking about?!", shouted Raven, arms up as the edges of the room seemed to produce a whirlwind that began to surround the two of them. The force shoved her steadily towards the center of the room towards Slade, who still appeared as calm as if the wind were nothing more than a summer breeze.

"I think you know precisely to what I am referring, my dear, and it's about time that you admit to it. You've already accepted it, that is undeniable."

Raven struggled to keep from being shoved ever closer to Slade, the markings on the tablet becoming ever more clear. The language was old, dead, as dead as her own planet, the planet from which it had come. Understanding flooded her being so suddenly that she no longer fought the wind, approaching slowly, but of her own accord as her eyes flashed over the language of Azarath. As she grew close enough, she could identify the language, but struggled with the exact meaning, the curving characters bastardized with her father's demonic native tongue and twisted to serve Slade's purpose.

"When the child becomes woman and accepts her fate, all powers shall be unleashed to seal it. As the sun sets on the third day, the one who rises will conquer. But if the conqueror fails to claim the prize, there will be nothing left." Slade chanted the words, then repeated them, the second time in the language in which they were inscribed, a vile tongue that brought bile to Raven's throat.

"I don't understand!" Raven cried aloud, anger and fear fighting for triumph within as the girl fought for any sense of control in the chaos. Slade laughed as Raven took another step closer, now no more than a foot from him.

"It means that your time has come, my Raven. It is time for you to become that which you were created to be. A bride."

With the words, the winds died, the tablet glowing brighter than the sun and shattering. Splinters of stone struck Raven's face despite her raised arms, too quickly for her to block. Sharp pain shot through where the stone splinters embedded themselves in her flesh. Her fingers lifted automatically to trace the curve the splinters formed, recognizing the character at first as one that had been so often drawn on stones and thrown at her by those who didn't understand what she was. But no, the extra line winging out on the side changed the meaning entirely. Rather than the slur that she couldn't translate into any human language, so cruel was it, it meant something more akin to 'Chosen' or 'Challenger'. The meaning gave her hope, hope that perhaps she had a chance of finding victory.

The hope must have been apparent on her face, as it drew a laugh from the man so very close to her. "Don't mistake that mark for a sign you may rebel against fate, my dear." He tapped the matching mark on his own cheek. "This merely binds us together. Tomorrow, we duel, and the outcome will be the same no matter the victor." Raven's stomach turned to lead as the man smiled peacefully, perfectly content with the knowledge he was about to impart. "The victor claims the loser as prize, and is bound to them eternally. So you see, there really is no chance of fleeing from your fate. There never was."

Morning broke too soon for Raven's taste, she had slept no more than an hour in five minute stretches between fitful and long periods of wakefulness. She would fight today against the man who had made her proficient in combat. It occurred to her early in the night that perhaps that was why he trained her, to make for a better battle and to provide hope which he could then smash before her eyes.

The man was sick.

* * *

Raven wrapped herself in her arms as she stared out of the darkened window, seeking comfort if only within herself. Escape was useless. The compound was a veritable fortress, and without her powers she would stand no chance against what Slade could do. And when she really got down to it, what would she be running to? Yes, she was an apt fighter, and very good at keeping her head in battle. But without her abilities, how effective could she really be as a hero?

She thought of Robin, and the abilities she had sensed deep within him so long ago when they first met. He had an outstanding amount of stamina even without harnessing what he held deep within, she suspected a strand of DNA gone wrong had ended up being a help, giving the boy an increased capacity for pain. And the training that she knew he had undergone with Batman's tutelage. She laughed wryly as the thought floated by that she now had a similar story. Family gone, taken under some strange man's wing, it was only too bad that this man did not have her best interest in mind.

Forehead tipping to press against the window, Raven closed her eyes to savour the last moments of peace she would have for the foreseeable future. She spent these minutes in silence, broken only by the 'ding' that signalled her summons to the arena.

It was time.


	5. Bonded

The outside air was a boon to Raven's swiftly expanding and contracting lungs, though the rising sun was already a difficulty for her vision. The vast amount of time spent inside had brought her to the point where even the small flashes of sunlight that pierced through the cracks between the tall buildings surrounding the outside arena were a distraction. She wondered after Slade's eyes, how he could handle the brightness though it seemed he spent nearly as much time indoors as she.

Stone rubbed on stone as she shifted in place, the armour on her body engraved with the sign she sported on her cheek, so very like that which Slade also wore. Nauseated by the heavy weight of the very real sword in her hand, Raven's quick mind jumped from thought to thought in its search for a way out, though none was forthcoming. She was trapped into this, apparently from before she was even born.

Fate would not win today. It had not escaped Raven that she was to 'claim' Slade should she win, but in the night she had begun to wonder just what she was to claim him as. Were she to come out victorious, was it a requirement that she claim Slade as a groom? Or would it be just as acceptable to accept him as a servant? The twisted thought of Slade in a suit, serving tea, it was enough to draw a laugh from the anxiety ridden girl.

"I would save your amusement for after our duel, my dear. You will need that good humour to lose gracefully." Slade was smug as he shouted across the battlefield, awaiting the signal that she was prepared to begin. Raven's fist tightened around her sword, she turned her back on the man. Of all that she had learned while under his idea of care, above all she knew that he had some sort of sense of fair play.

No, he hadn't preferred to employ this in battles in the past, but never had he truly done anything but beat her severely in training, not even to the extent that she had expected in the early days. Perhaps it was a mind game, and perhaps the man was merely going easy on her, either way he did tend to stop when it became obvious that Raven grew too injured to continue.

Now though, in this duel, would he extend the same sort of generosity? Confident that he would not begin until she was ready, at least, Raven took a moment to compose herself, to mentally prepare for what the end of the battle would bring no matter the outcome.

After three deep breaths to steady herself, Raven turned to face the man, raising her sword above her head. She was ready to fight, and she was ready to defy any power that would try to bring her to her knees.

Lucifer shouted from the sidelines, giving the signal that the duel had begun, but neither party moved for a long moment, merely staring each other down.

On his feet for the first time in weeks, Lucifer recalled the punishment that had left him wounded to the point that he actually feared death for the first time in a century.

_The wound that should have been deadly, the bullet to his forehead, it ached with the dull throb of an old bruise. Lucifer's attempts at breath came ragged and shallow, not that he really needed them. Life had been something that clung to the man for longer than he cared to recount, no matter the methods he employed to bring about the sweet embrace of death._

_Slade's voice was low as he approached Lucifer with slow, purposed steps, "Why is it you have chosen now to turn on me, brother? How have you come to the erroneous conclusion that allowing the girl free could somehow allow her to escape her fate?" He settled on the floor beside Lucifer's body, maneuvering the unmoving man so that his injured, but barely bleeding, head was cradled in his lap._

" _This won't change the past." Lucifer spoke, his response barely more than a half breath forced past subtly moving lips. But Slade knew the man well enough to read him, and to understand immediately._

" _It will change the future", Slade answered firmly, using his fingers to wipe at the unnaturally weak trickle of blood that leaked from his victim's head wound. "And that is all that matters." Lucifer breathed weakly, wheezing but steady as the chemicals in the unique bullet in his forehead polluted his system with a paralytic more and more thoroughly by the second._

" _You… can… change.." Lucifer urged his heavy tongue to make the words that might convince his brother to move from the path he had chosen all those years ago, the path that had enslaved him to the man with whom he shared blood and life and history. The path had doomed him, had doomed Slade, and doomed any chance that Lucifer would see the light of day as anything other than a servant to the man he called brother._

" _I have no interest in changing, Lucifer, and I would have hoped that time would have made that abundantly clear." He sighed as he smoothed away hair from the paralyzed man's brow, looking into his eyes. "I have waited for my prize, and I have no desire to wait any longer." Slade glanced away. "You must be punished for your treachery, you know that."_

_Despite the eons of life he had lived, and the disassociation and near imperviousness to pain that had come from such a long existence, Lucifer felt his insides shudder at Slade's words, at his implication. There would be pain, the other man would be certain that Lucifer did not escape this encounter undamaged._

_Closing his eyes, Lucifer found himself incapable of fighting the chemicals keeping his body from any form of movement and chose to surrender to the whims he could not have subverted anyway. Slade took the silence as a sign of assent, shifting so that he would have free reign to torture his kin._

" _I don't like doing this", Slade admitted as his hands hovered over Lucifer's helpless form, uncertainty gripping at his expression in the space between heartbeats. "But you must learn." He moved quickly, rising and summoning a drone to carry his paralyzed brother to another room, to the room in which he would be broken._

The memories came in flashes, as the paralytic had worked retroactively as a sort of… dimmer. It dimmed the memories of Slade's punishment, ever a painful experience, after the rather severe wound to his head. Not only had it worked against his mind, but against his body, dulling his ability to heal swiftly that would have had him back to normal within a week.

His recollections were interrupted as the clash of weapons on the battlefield finally struck, bringing his attention to the standoff.

Sword on sword, Raven's eyes connected with Slade's for a brief moment before she leaped away. His strength would be a problem, though she had gained quite a bit of her own. And the height difference made it that much harder in physical combat. It was apparent to Raven that actual physical interaction was her weakness when it came down to a fight, due in part to her size and in part to the power she no longer possessed. As ever, she could feel it, just out of reach. Slade's words tormented her from so long ago, the source of the incantation that had blocked off her power, her father. Her maker and her greatest shame.

Slade made contact, the flat of his blade striking her hard at her shoulders, throwing her to the ground with the force of the blow. Landing with a grunt, she rolled into the impact and returned to her feet with just enough time to see his rapid approach, sword outstretched. She ducked under his next swing, sliding behind and down to sweep his legs.

Jumping as her leg swept the ground beneath him, Slade landed just out of her reach, forcing Raven to be the one to attack first. But she refused. She held her ground and fixed Slade with an unwavering expression of determination. To her irritation, the twist of her features brought a laugh to the man's lips.

"I do love a woman with a bit of fire." His words were light but sincere, yet another thing that drove her to distraction. This was his plan, she realized, distract and defeat. Her feet ground in where she stood. She would not let him win. If she were to be stuck with the man in any capacity at all, she would the one to define the terms.

It might have been an hour or two as Raven and Slade came to head again and again over their swords, the occasional hit landed by a kick. The girl could feel her strength wavering in the morning hours; endurance had never been her strong suit, but it didn't appear to be Slade's either. He hadn't donned the mask that once had been all Raven ever saw him in outside of meals. Exposed to her eyes, Slade's face was drawn and grim as they met time after time over the clash of weapon on weapon. In his forehead throbbed a thick vein that Raven couldn't help but notice, radiating out from the ruined side of his visage and stretching up into his hairline.

"Why..is this…god.. Just.." Raven wanted to question the man like never before, and it was a shock that it hadn't occurred to her to ask questions sooner. What had happened to the girl she was before this man came along and twisted her into the sort of person that viewed abominations against humanity without flinching? He had said that she had 'accepted her role'. Was that true?

The thought made her shoulder give way as she made to block another strike, allowing Slade to land a blow that she felt might have broken a rib.

Had she truly fallen to the point that she would accept this man as.. as something she had never considered anyone for? Not once in her years on Earth had she honestly considered anyone for any kind of lasting relationship, even friendship was hard won. Though she had had those minor interests in the past in one person or another, never had she thought of anyone as lasting. Not really. Not when the human lifespan lasted no more than a fraction of her own.

Raven considered Slade. She considered the fact he had let slip. His age was certainly not what it appeared, and she had no real idea how that was possible unless he was not human. But couldn't be right. When she had had her powers, she would have sensed it in the man were he not from Earth. So it only stood to reason that something else had made him the way he was.

Slate and Lucifer's stories invaded her thoughts, she barely dodged a swipe, the tip of Slade's sword narrowly missing her thigh. In the stories that Lucifer had told her, there existed a fountain of youth of sorts. Raven scolded herself for thinking that it could be true, then again for not allowing that to have been a possibility in her thoughts.

"If you don't pay attention, I shall have to assume you forfeit." Raven jumped as Slade's voice came quite suddenly from close beside her, the blow she took leaving her crumpled on the ground. Lucifer made as if to raise a hand and call the duel to a halt before Raven called out in a rough voice, "Don't stop the fight!" She wasn't beaten yet.

Slade allowed her to get to her feet, eyes glimmering with the joy of battle and impending victory in a way that made Raven sick. If this man was allowed to win her, she didn't doubt that the powers-that-be would be content to enforce her fate.

"Why are you doing this!?" Raven shouted, voice shaking and strained with the effort that she had thus far exerted. "Why is this so damn important!?" She had thought about that at least, why on Earth Slade would contract her father for a _bride._ It didn't make any sense. The man wasn't any sort of good, so why was it he didn't just kidnap a woman and be done with it? It wasn't as if Raven condoned the action, but to go through all of this trouble seemed ridiculous. He certainly didn't lack the funds or the connections for such things.

Rolling his shoulders as he fixed Raven with a hard stare, she saw the flash in Slade's eyes before he curled his lips cruelly.

"Perhaps I wanted a bride who wouldn't break. Are you going to disappoint me?" Bristling at the crude implication and the way Slade dragged his eyes up her body in a manner that she hadn't yet seen coming from him, Raven took on a position of defence, making it clear that she was prepared.

"Or _perhaps_ you're too afraid to let anyone who is actually able to run away see that _face_ of yours." Her words were cruel as his expression, petty but biting. And obviously effective by the way Slade's posture shifted, his hand twitching as if it wanted to lift to hide his face.

"Really, Raven. Are insults all you have left? Are you ready to concede defeat?" he hissed through his teeth, Fist clenching and unclenching on the hilt of his sword. She drew her sore body up tall, chin tilted in defiance.

"I'm not even close to beaten yet."

* * *

The steady beep of machines, monitoring the healing progress of their patient, echoed aloud the beat of the injured figure's heart. Conscious for only a few brief moments since the battle had come to an end, low murmurs were all that the wounded challenger was able to produce.

"Don't move around too much", Lucifer stated without looking up from his clipboard, aware for the last minute of the waking of his patient. A low grumble was his answer, he pinned the figure with a firm look. "You're healing quickly, but you must remain still. Tomorrow is a big day."

* * *

Voices whispered in the air around the two, crackling along with the atmospheric electricity that spoke of a coming storm. Shudders accompanied the goosebumps erupting across Raven's flesh, a fact that was noticed but not mocked by the two men with her. They both were more than aware of her demon heritage and the meaning of such. She was going to be naturally far more sensitive to the powers being summoned by the dark words flowing from Lucifer's mouth like silk, words that would permanently scar the very soul of any mere mortal who was unlucky enough to be witness to them. Of course, in present company that wasn't a problem.

Standing tall, Raven was still aware of her every hurt and ache despite the time she had been afforded to heal. From the way Slade stood, he too was still hurting, but doing his level best to hide it. A sliver of pride had nestled itself deep within at every memory of the battle that had waged for hours, leaving the both of them thoroughly broken. In the end, however, there had to be a winner, and due to the extensive training she had been given, Raven somehow managed this, her endurance lasting mere minutes longer than Slade's. The foul gaze aimed at her was just as volatile as it would have been were it not coming from under the mask Slade had donned once more. She assumed it was to hide the damage she had done to his pride, and this boosted her ego more than a little. However, it deflated slightly as she shifted, a new wave of hurt rushing up the side of her body where a cacophony of bruises had yet to heal.

"Raven, I need your blood." The girl shivered as she offered her hand to Lucifer, any ritual involving blood tended to bring back awful memories she would rather bury deep in her subconscious. "And you, Slade", continued Lucifer once he had taken Raven's donation by way of a cut along the pad of her thumb. Mixing their blood in a small stone bowl, Lucifer spoke intent over it. The words prickled on Raven's skin. An awe overtook Lucifer's face as the blood comingled, forming two smooth snake-like forms and twisting together as they rose above the bowl. They hovered by the power of the ancient words alone, intertwining in shapes both obscene and beautiful. Slade's awe echoed Lucifer's with his stance alone though had yet to speak, he hadn't uttered a word in Raven's presence since she had only barely defeated him. This fact, though in a way relieving, had set Raven's mind to whirling. Why she should care, she didn't particularly want to think about.

It felt so long ago that this man had stolen her away, stolen her entire life, for the purpose of making her a glorified slave. Yet here she was now, willingly standing before the man. Earlier in the day, before the sun had risen, Lucifer had come to her room. It was the first time in all of her captivity that Raven could remember Lucifer approaching her in her own quarters and that alone set the encounter apart. He had come with information, something that Raven thirsted for like water, most especially seeing as she had been given very little specific information concerning what would happen next.

According to him, her victory meant that Slade was obligated to become that which he had wanted to make of her. A slave. Lucifer spoke no word of request that she do the opposite, but the hope in his face was clear. Despite what Slade had tried to make of her, there was a bit of mercy left within. While she might have grown stronger, colder, she was far from cruel. Even without the man's unspoken question, Raven had already been having those questioning thoughts of if she really wished to subject anyone to slavery. For so long she had been a slave herself, to her father, to her fate. To imagine setting someone else in that place caused a multitude of agonies that a part of the girl wanted to act out upon, but the majority wanted to ignore. She had given Lucifer no answer, but it seemed the dark magic being performed had felt her intentions. Something unusual was happening and Raven did not like that she was out of the loop.

"What's happening?" Her voice was hushed, eyes fixed on the ever moving rivulets of blood. Neither Lucifer nor Slade answered, though the latter reached up and removed his mask. His expression mirrored Lucifer's as he watched the twisting and turning, gaze flitting to Raven for a half second before returning to the morphing blood. "What's _happening_?" Raven repeated, more insistent this time. Lucifer was stunned into silence, but Slade finally let out a low short laugh.

"You've accepted me as an equal.' The words were disbelieving, but somehow holding more honesty than Raven had ever heard from the man. There was no hint of guile in his tone or expression, Raven shifted where she stood. "You've.. chosen me." At this Raven's hackles were raised. No. Absolutely not. She didn't _choose_ anything and she hadn't been able to for quite a long time now. What she had done was not get herself killed and made the best of a bad situation.

"No." Raven denied the man's words in a low voice, though she looked to Lucifer for an explanation or reassurance or…something. The man offered a slow release of the breath he had been holding in answer, his face pale as he looked to Raven.

"There's no denying your eyes. This is not what happens at a binding, this is what happens at a _bonding_." He looked to Slade with a still awed expression. "And it means he's accepted _you_ as his equal as well." In his voice there might have been something like jealousy, but wonder drowned it out. Raven's attention snapped to Slade who appeared to be struggling.

"Explain." The demand wasn't one of a captive to captor, but one that said she felt like she held some sort of control. It was automatic and Raven thought maybe Lucifer was right. Had she accepted that this was her place now? Perhaps. But did that mean she liked it? Certainly not. One thing was sure though, there was no way she was going to be anything more than a reluctant participator in anything. As always.

Slade was tentative with his explanation. "Because I lost to you in battle", he started grudgingly, "You won the right to bind me. My fealty. But this..," he gestured to the undulating blood, "This is not a binding. Rather than your power taking mine, capturing it completely, it's chosen to…" He stopped then, struggling for words and actually dropping his hands to his sides, seeming more like a normal man that Raven had ever seen.

"Your power has chosen to join together", Lucifer continued where Slade could not, finishing the man's explanation and causing far too many conflicting feelings within Raven to come to light.

"This is not possible."

"You would deny what your own eyes are telling you?" Slade's tone was almost mocking, causing Raven to bristle.

"How do I know this isn't a trick? Something to make me surrender?" Slade laughed harshly.

"You surrendered long ago, Raven, and this is the proof." Fisting her hands at her sides, Raven huffed.

"I can't stand you, why in hell would I ever _choose_ you?"

"But you don't hate me." Raven made to retort that she did before she stopped. Because she didn't. She couldn't remember when it happened, or why, but somehow she didn't completely hate the vile man anymore. And it drove her mad. Her own mind had turned against her, her very own blood. It made her flesh crawl to think that there was a part of her that accepted the man that had taken everything from her. But not everything, she argued with herself, and the hatred turned inward. What had he done to turn her against herself so thoroughly? Perhaps it was the way he had never accepted her weakness, or how he had shown her the harshness and cruelty of the world fully expecting her to handle it.

A sudden realization dawned that Slade had shown more faith in her, in a twisted way, than her friends ever had, and that made her nauseous. Her long silence served as a confirmation as far as Slade was concerned, and something began to happen within the bloody forms in the air..

Raven and Slade rose their wounded hands as one, pulled by the power of the life force hovering between them. Tugged by an invisible, ancient force, the two reached out. There was a pulse as they made contact with the still uncomfortably warm blood, a power that rushed through the two simultaneously, feeling both like utter agony and complete ecstasy. Raven cried out, hearing the sound echoed by the man opposite her as she stumbled back after several eternal seconds.

The air fell suddenly still and silent, Lucifer whispering in a hushed voice, "It's done." Before either of the two could say a word, Raven stepped back and dashed away. Running away was not her usual style, but this was far too much. Between the man claiming that she had surrendered, accepted it even, the fact that her blood had just been once more included in a dark ritual and the horrible conflicting sensations of pain and pleasure she had just experienced, she was done with trying to handle things. She had learned to be stronger, but that didn't mean she had to be all of the time.

* * *

Slade felt strangely numb as he stood in his own personal quarters before a wall sized mirror, examining the new marks that had taken form on his body. From the inside of his right wrist up to the elbow ancient symbols of power were etched in silvery scar tissue, a smaller matching set gracing the space under his left collarbone, just above where his heart beat steadily. He was marked, and he had no doubt that Raven was as well. The thought of the girl he had taken was now mingled with a measure of both wonder and guilt. The emotion was foreign and unpleasant. Why should he feel guilty? He had done this from the beginning for one purpose only. To die. And in the end, that would give the girl what she wanted anyway. Freedom.

Trigon had had his way with Slade's fate up until now, but his daughter had provided him with an even better opportunity to subvert it. With the demon dead and gone, there would be none who could change this, and Slade didn't doubt that the girl would kill him eventually. What he had said was true, she had accepted him, likely even respected him in some way, but he held no delusion that she had any amount of care for him. If he pushed her, she could kill him, and it was that that he was counting on.

A 'ding' echoed in his room, signalling that Lucifer had prepared dinner. He would be forced to face the girl that he now essentially belonged to, but only as much as she belonged to him. His markings throbbed as the image of Raven crossed his mind, and he made a note to speak with Lucifer about the implications of the placement. After all, his brother had always been the smart one.


End file.
